Follow Your Arrow
by HollywoodBound
Summary: She wasn't sure what she wanted from life until the walkers came. Now, she knows two things for sure; she wants to survive and she wants him surviving right along with her. Rated M for language, violence, and future chapters. Daryl/OC
1. Chapter 1

******Hello! Welcome to my story, _Follow Your Arrow._ I've been playing with the idea of writing this for a while and I'm excited to finally get it on here for you all to read and (hopefully) enjoy! This is my first time writing a story on here, so bear with me as I work out any kinks. **

**I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I did thinking it up. Please review and whatnot if you like it! **

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters or situations in The Walking Dead. However, I will claim ownership over my OC, because she's pretty cool.**

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Her legs were burning in protest as she forced herself to continue running.

_Just a bit further, _she thought.

She could see the heavenly, sparkling blue water peeking through the trees. Surely those dead things couldn't swim. If they could, at least she would get some relief from the scorching Georgia heat before she died. The thought of the cool water rushing over her warm skin spurred her tired legs forward until she found herself face down in the dirt.

She looked back and silently cursed at the exposed tree root she had tripped over. However, she only had a moment to register the pain radiating from her ankle before the sound of snapping branches and groans reached her ears, effectively causing all her thoughts and feelings to halt, until only one instinct alone remained, _survival_.

She hastily removed her booted foot from where it was tangled up in the root, gritted her teeth, and pulled herself up and pushed forward. When she managed to burst through the foliage a few moments later, her spilt second of triumph came to a screeching halt. She had found the glistening water but it was a good 50 feet below her and she knew the chances of surviving the drop were slim and that was if it were a clean jump, as it were there were numerous pieces of jutted out rock for her to break her fall or some body parts on.

She let loose a sound of frustration and turned around as the first rotted corpse made its reappearance through the trees. It was the dead, reanimated body of a tall, gangly man. He looked to be in his mid-to-late twenties. He was missing a huge chunk out of both his left arm and right leg. How the one with the bum leg had been the first freak from the group to reach her beat the hell outta her.

When she had first run into the small group of freaks a half-mile back, she had killed the first one that lunged at her and then took off like a bat out of hell. However, the only problem with her idea of out running them she realized as she raced through the brush of the forest, cutting her skin on wild bushes and low hanging branches, was that these undead things, while they couldn't move as fast as her, they didn't get winded. She did. The realization that these flesh-eating, once-human monsters would eventually catch up with her, hit her like a ton of bricks. She was literally feeling the hope draining out of her when she spied the glistening water through the thick trees.

But now with her back to a cliff, her ankle throbbing, and Mr. Tall and Gangly making his way towards her, her whole fight or flight decision changed. She knew the chances of him or one of the others catching her now were too high if she chanced going back into the brush and she sure as hell wasn't going to risk turning her back on them so they could claw and bite at her from behind. No, she was no longer in flight mode. Now, she was all fight.

She quickly removed her knife from it's place on her hip and adjusted her weight like they had taught her in the self-defense class she had taken before the dead starting walking. She brought her injured left foot to rest on the ground in front of her and rested most of her weight on her right foot behind her. She angled her body so that only her left side was visible to the geek and held her left hand up in front of her face to block or push the thing away from her. She readjusted her grip on her knife in her right hand and held it in front of her stomach as she crouched down slightly as the geek stumbled closer to her.

"Hey," She taunted, making a kissing noise. "Come on. Come a little closer."

At the sound of her voice, Mr. Tall and Gangly sped up groaning and reaching for her, the sound of her voice and smell of living flesh almost too much for him. As he reached for her, she ducked under his arm and caught him in the sternum with her left hand pushing him away. As the geek stumbled, she took the opportunity to kick her leg out and curl her right foot around the geeks knee and pull forward, effectively knocking him down onto his back. She then sprang forward and plunged her knife into Mr. Tall and Gangly's head. He let out a noise that sounded like a mix between a gasp and groan before he went completely still. She pulled the blade free from its skull, trying to ignore the fluid coming from the wound and quickly wiped the blade on the now _dead _dead man's khaki's.

She stood back and let out a breath. It would only be a matter of time before the others found her. No sooner had the thought crossed her mind then she felt herself being pulled back by her long brown hair. She cried in out in pain as the offensive odor of dead, rotten flesh filled her nostrils. She used the ground as momentum and pushed back against the growling geek until the pair slammed into a tree. She reached back blinding following the growls and jammed the knife through what she hoped was its skull.

When the geek stopped moving, she let a rush of air pass through her lips. She tried to moved away but found her ponytail still clutched tightly in its hand. She twirled herself around and began prying the geeks fingers away from her hair, careful not to scratch herself in doing so. When the ponytail fell from the dirty, rotted hands, she straightened herself to look at her assailant. It was the woman. She looked to be in her early forties with short blonde, cropped hair.

A streak of panic went through her as she recalled the two walkers that left. She went to pull her knife free from the geek's temple, only to find part of the blade was lodged in the tree behind it.

"No, no, no, _no_. Come on," she whispered urgently as she continued to pull at the stuck weapon.

A rustling in the brush ahead of her caught her attention. Her heart rate speed up as she reached into the back of the waistband of her jean shorts and pulled out her pistol. She hated the thought using her gun in case the sound attracted more of the walking dead in the vicinity to her presence. Not to mention she had only one bullet left. However, she hated the thought of being tore apart by those things even more.

She watched the brush for a few moments until a squirrel hurried out and up a nearby tree. She rolled her eyes at herself and went back to trying to dislodge the blade, gun still firmly in one hand. When she heard another, louder rustling sound she placed her right foot against the tree and pulled.

To her relief, the blade came free from both the geek's head as well as the tree behind it. However, the momentum of the knife being pulled free sent her falling backwards and the woman's body landed with a sickening thump on her already injured ankle.

She cried out in a mixture of pain and frustration. And to make matters worse her gun had landed a couple yards away from her in some foliage and alas, Mr. Hulk Freak had just emerged from the bushes.

She pulled herself out from under the body and scooted across the forest floor on her backside trying to put as much distance between Steroidosaurus and herself as possible while trying to get as close to her gun as she could.

The geek groaned and moved for her, excited at the prospect of ripping into her skin. He was a good nine inches taller and had a hundred plus pounds on her. She doubted she could fight her way out of his grasp if he got a hold of her like she did with the female. As the geek got up close and reached for her, she kicked up at him landing one square in his gut. He didn't move back more than an inch and instead grabbed ahold of her booted foot, knocking her onto her back with a painful thud and dragged her closer to him. She managed to pull her foot free of the boot the asshole had ahold of and dove towards her knife. She grasped the handle just as the undead asshole lunged at her. She turned and tried shove the blade through its brain. She let out cry of frustration or fear, probably a bit of both as the blade slide into its jugular.

The stagnant smell of death was sickeningly potent as the creep's jaws snapped closer and closer to her face. The brunette let out a small whimper and closed her eyes as she tried with all the strength she could muster to push it off of her, when she heard a rush of air and suddenly the geek went completely limp, slumping on top of her. When she opened her eyes, she was greeted by the sight an arrow protruding out of the geek's temple.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: Okay, so I suck. I'm so sorry it's taken this long for me to get this chapter out. I've just been super busy and I kept writing and rewriting this chapter. Good news is that I should be getting these chapters out a lot faster now that things have slowed down a little. I'm already working on the chapter 3. So yay!**

**I hope you all are enjoying it so far! I have so much planned for this story already, but if you all have any suggestions I'd love to read them in a message or review! Also, I'm going to be answering reviews at the end of every chapter starting now.**

**I think that about covers it for right now! I hope you all enjoy this chapter of _Follow Your Arrow_.**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own any characters or situations in The Walking Dead. However, I will claim ownership over my OC, because she's pretty cool.**

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She could feel the blood pulsing behind her eardrums as the suffocating weight of the heavy, dead corpse was finally lifted off of her and she found herself looking into a pair of clear blue eyes that were peering down at her.

"Ya bite?"

She shook her head at the blue-eyed man, letting the air return to her lungs.

"Scratched?"

"N-no," she gasped out.

"Well, how 'bout ya get up, then?"

She was briefly taken aback by the man's demeanor before she began to push herself off the ground. She started when felt a rough hand wrap around her bicep and haul her up to her feet. He immediately dropped her arm when she was up right and gazed over her skin.

"Listen, thanks for-"

"Sure got a lot of scratches on ya," he said, narrowing his eyes at a particularly nasty one on her arm.

"Got caught on a lot of branches running away from those things. None of these are from them touching me."

Lifting his narrowed blue eyes to her green ones, he looked at her as if analyzing her. She'd had both the pleasure and misfortune of running into her fair share of survivors since this whole thing began to know that he was sizing her up, accessing her threat level and she returned the favor readily.

The look in his eyes was sharp and observant. Almost as if he expected her to make some kind of move, react to his brass questioning and demeanor in a certain way, as if he was reading into her every thought. His attitude towards her was hardly welcoming but then again based on what she'd seen so far in this new world, no one could be too careful. Even if he did have the upper hand with a bigger build and a weapon. The logical part of her brain immediately told her to be wary of the blue-eyed stranger in front of her, but there was something almost instinctual that caused any worries that were arising in her mind to calm. Maybe it was the fact that he had saved her life moments before, or the way that his gaze, while menacing, held something else in it. Something softer. Her gut instinct told her he wasn't a bad guy, at least he wasn't as bad as he was trying to seem.

He watched as she relaxed her stance and turned, limping over to retrieve her boot from its resting place beside the biter. She shoved her foot back into the boot and gazed back up at him.

"You don't believe me." She stated, looking around her.

He leaned over pulling both the blade of her knife out of the corpse's jugular and the bolt from its temple; the rush of old blood that quickly began to flow from the wounds not fazing him.

"People lie," he responded gruffly, wiping the blade off on the biter's shorts and handing it back to her.

"Yet, you give me my knife back," she raised her eyebrow at the man as she took the weapon from his grasp and slide it back into the sheath hanging from one of her belt loops.

"Figure I could take ya 'fore ya bit my ass." He watched as she moved through a nearby bush and retrieved a pistol.

"Don't count on it, I can be scrappy," she laughed quietly, sliding the safety back on and shoving the gun into the back of her waistband. She walked back over to the corpse he had saved her from. "Probably even as one of these things." She gave the dead biter a firm kick in the side. "_Asshole_."

He smirked when he heard her curse the corpse underneath her breath. He quickly hid it as the young woman turned back to him.

"Lucky for you, though, I'm not lying." She told him making a point to capture his eyes with hers for emphasis.

She took a step towards him then and opened her mouth to try to thank him again for rescuing her when a sudden rustle in one of the bushes caught both of their attentions. Her mind suddenly flew to the last freak that was chasing her and she took a step back to stand alongside her new companion, unsheathing her knife yet again. From the corner of her eye she noticed the man had raised his crossbow.

"I forgot the last one. There was one more chasing me," she whispered to the man who had still not taken his eyes or crossbow off the bushes.

Suddenly another man emerged and she saw the man next to her lower his crossbow and roll his eyes.

"Merle, the hell you been?!"

"How 'bout ya just go and untwist 'em panties of yours boy. Thought I give ya a moment alone with ya little damsel here." The man, Merle, made a point of looking her up and down before letting a low whistle pass through his lips.

She scoffed at the older man's attention and Merle let out a bark of laughter.

"Wha? Can't a man enjoy a good view in this shithole of a new world we livin' in?"

"Merle, shut up." The man beside her mumbled.

"Ah shit, Darylina. You already done ruined my fun twice today. Ya know -"

"Well, your fun's gonna be ruined again when a big freak comes out of those woods and takes a bite out of ya," She nodded her head towards the direction of the brush she tore out of a few moments before.

"Woo, doggy! That _was_ one mean sum bitch back there. He was fun, but he weren't no match for a Dixon."

"You killed it?"

"Course girlie. Ol' Merle couldn't have that ugly ass chasing after a sweet little thing like you." The man gave a hearty laugh and then looked her up and down again. "Though, I gots to admit I sure did have a mighty fine time watching ya do yer work on those other two." He nodded to the other corpses littering the ground.

She opened her mouth to respond when the sound of a car screeching to a stop and slamming doors interrupted her thoughts. She immediately reached for the gun in her waistband.

"Calm down." The man with the crossbow told her, swinging his crossbow around to hang from his back. "Yer fine."

She cast the man beside her a look before lowering the pistol to her side just as four men came running into view. The men slowed and lowered their weapons when they saw the bodies on the ground and the three standing around them.

"Hey piggy!" Merle shouted at the built man in front holding a shotgun. "Looks like yer response time is just as bad in this world as it was in the ol' one." He laughed, walking up behind her and placing an arm around her shoulders. "Lucky for you yer _favorite_ brothers were here to save this fine specimen."

She rolled her eyes and shrugged off his arm, resulting in another laugh from Merle as the man approached her, ignoring the laughing redneck.

"You okay? Our lookout saw you cornered by some walkers," the man asked.

"Yeah," she gestured to the _dead _dead bodies around her with a smirk. "I'm good."

"You put all these down?" The man asked her.

"I took care of those two," she said pointing to the blonde woman and skinny man. "I had a little help with that one."

She cast an appreciative glance at the man beside her as she pointed to the corpse that had almost taken a bite out of her. "Thanks for that, by the way-"

"Daryl." He replied when he realized she was asking his name.

"Daryl," She smiled. "Thank you."

He acknowledged her appreciation with a nod and a grunt.

"I'm Shane Walsh," The man with the shotgun interjected, offering her his hand.

"Molly Maxwell." She replied, accepting his handshake with a small smile.

"You on your own out here, Molly?" He asked with a raised eyebrow, releasing her hand.

"Yeah." She replied quietly, glancing away from Shane for a moment.

"Well, we've got us a camp across the quarry there. You're welcome to join us, if you're interested."

She looked across to the other side of quarry where she could make out what looked like an RV with someone standing on the roof.

_Watch your six._

Jake's last words rang through her mind as she glanced at the men around her. Here she was at what felt like the end of the world, she'd witnessed things that no one should ever have to witness, done things that no one should ever have to do to survive. She'd also been alone for the past week and a half, she'd felt her hope draining from her the longer she was on her own and pushed herself to beyond exhaustion to be able to survive on her own. She felt a depression come over her at the thought of walking away from the opportunity of being with other living, breathing people and going off to be alone again. But she wasn't naïve.

_Watch your six._

She couldn't just blindly trust these men. No matter how nice they seemed. She'd seen what this world did to people during the outbreak. She'd witnessed the panic, the violent looting, she still remembered the madness her and one of her friends found themselves caught up in when surrounded by the rapidly changing world. She couldn't just blindly trust these men.

_Watch your six._

But she had blindly trusted Jake. Her and Anna both had. They had made a _spilt second decision_ to trust him and it had saved their lives. For a while, at least for Anna.

She looked around the group of men nervously, before her eyes settled on the man who had just saved her life. Daryl. He undoubtedly wasn't the most well liked guy among those around them, as the other men had barely paid him any regard and his demeanor wasn't helping him any as he clutched to his crossbow strap and scowled at the ground. But she had found herself blindly trusting him the moment he pulled the dead biter off of her. He lifted his eyes to hers with a questioning gaze when he felt her eyes on him.

The young Asian man behind Shane stepped forward then, grabbing her attention. He was the smallest of the other men and looked to be about her age, he offered her a smile when she looked at him.

"Um, Molly? Hi, I'm Glenn Rhee," he started, sensing her nervous hesitation. "Listen, we've got a bunch of other people over there if you'd like to meet them? I mean if you don't want to stay, at least get some rest and let us get you something for your foot," he gestured to the foot she was gingerly holding above the ground. "And I'm sure Carol and Lori could spare some food or something."

Molly smiled lightly at Glenn as he continued rambling on. His suggestions helped to ease her hesitation. And while she knew he specifically mentioned the two women's names for her benefit, It didn't come across as if he was trying to convince her to join but rather he was genuinely worried for her. She knew she couldn't go on the way she was for very much longer. Today had been a close call. What if no one came around next time? She shuddered lightly at the thought. She glanced at Daryl again, finding that this time he was staring intently at her. Sending up a small prayer that she wasn't about to make a completely idiotic decision, she turned back to Glenn.

"It's my ankle," she stated, throwing him off for a moment.

"What?"

"I hurt my ankle, not my foot." Molly corrected Glenn, before meeting Shane eyes.

"And yes, if ya'll will have me, I'd very much appreciate joining your camp."

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**A/N: Thank you to everyone who has followed and favorited so far! I'm glad you like it. **

**Reviews-**

**Leyshla Gisel: Yes! I didn't want to be mean and make ya'll have to wait too long to get him in the story. Yeah, I played with the idea of how many walkers I wanted her to be confronted with. I wanted it to be few enough so that she could make a run for it without getting swarmed, but I also wanted enough to make her fighting them on her own difficult, but not impossible. I think I found the right balance for her. Plus, it gives her a kinda badass status in the very beginning to be able to fight like that.**

**lovelivebelieve: I'm so glad you're loving it so far! Sorry I made you wait so long for the next chapter.**

**xoxo HollywoodBound**


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